I always get blasted right off the computer whenever I comment on this but I've always raised my turkeys right along with my chickens. BUT, I did call my county agriculture department and talked with them about diseases locally to poultry. Blackhead is not common in my area. That is not saying that it couldn't be today. I've never had any problems so far. Just this morning I was thinking about putting mine out. They range from 3 - 8 weeks. The younger ones still have a light and I would move it with them. A dozen poults in the bathroom is too much. I really need to sell them but since they require a little more care, I guess I was waiting until they were 2 mo to give them a chance elsewhere. I sprinkle cayenne pepper on top of their food several days a week and feed them a Chick Starter and Flock Raiser along with a handful of scratch now and then mostly, now fermented. They love scrambled eggs. Chuck and Rosie both LOVE yogurt. They are over a year old and Rosie is somewhat aggressive to the chickens. If Blackhead is known in your area, I'd give them a fighting chance by keeping them off the ground as long as possible. I really don't know much about fowl pox. It's a lot of work to not take a few precautions for a couple more weeks. I'd be devastated if mine died and I'm not affectionate to any of my birds.I have a few questions.
The first was in my original post last week, but I asked a LOT of questions so it got lost in the shuffle... it was about whether or not to cull hens who get bare backs. I only have 2 roosters with my 30+ hens, and I have more than I care to admit who have bare backs. Do I need to cull all of them? And I need a WHY if the answer is yes, thanks
Also, in reading the last several pages of posts, I see a lot of people are amending their FF with herbs and garlic and stuff. While strangely I had thought about adding some chickweed or some other herb a few days ago, I didn't look more into it and didn't realize it was something people were doing regularly. What do you add (other than feed/grains) to your FF, and is there a list of things to add and their reasoning?
And lastly, I have some questions about natural care for turkeys. I've asked over at the turkey forum, but I'm getting some very NOT natural answers and my gut is saying NOOOOOO!
1) I haven't found any info on FF for turkeys, but I transitioned them when I transitioned the broilers yesterday. They were a lot harder to get started- the broilers figured out it was food in just a few hours, but with the turkey poults I kept having to sprinkle crumbles on top of the FF... then they'd pick all the crumbles off and ignore the FF. FINALLY after a whole day of this they got it and are absolutely wolfing down the FF, so that's good! I'm hoping all the little buggies (as my kids and I call them) in both the FF and the raw ACV in their water will help innoculate them against all the awful diseases they're prone to... Anyone have experience FF turkeys? Or ducks, because I'm also thinking about getting ducks later this spring...
2) Everyone on the turkey forum says they keep their Turkey poults 100% inside until they are 8 weeks old. 1) I just can't, the only way it would even be plausible would be if I set up a makeshift pen in the shed, and there is no way in h*#% you can convince me that is healthier than being outside, since the shed is dark and musty and dusty. And the vaccines... lots of turkey people give their birds the fowl pox vaccine at 8 weeks (before they can get outside...). Is that like 100% necessary or my birds WILL die? My plan, unless someone can present me with a convincing argument otherwise, is to move them outside around 3 weeks (with a heat lamp still if it's super cold outside, as it well could be, although they're pretty darn feathered out already, and if they're fully feathered by then they don't need heat, right?) to the smaller of my two tractors. They will tractor/free range with my chickens, and when the broilers head off the the processor I'll move the turkeys to the bigger tractor for the duration of their time on this earth. If they contract blackhead/fowl pox and die then, well, I guess I've learned my lesson and I won't try turkeys again. But from what I can tell it's not a huge issue in my area, and my chickens, to the best of my limited knowledge, have never shown any symptoms. Anyway... to that end I'll take any natural tips I can get! For what it's worth, other than not taking to the FF right away my poults have done awesome (knocking on wood) this first week, but my friend split the order with me and one of hers is having issues. Surprisingly she seems to have managed to save it (when she texted me Saturday night... of course during the new Doctor Who episode... she was sure he was near death, but she gave it some scrambled egg and some infant vites and it seems to have recovered... she's not the most thorough person, it may have just not been eating before that, I don't know if she realized that was a possibility with poults). Anyway... Thanks in advance for any info! I love this thread!
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